Jobs were submitted on punched cards and the jobs were read and written to tape by the 1401s. The tape was then read on the 7090 and the jobs processed using only mag tape for input and output. Any printed output was written to a print tape. The print tape was read by the 1401s and printed to a printer.
Only periphreals on the 7090 were tape drives and disk storage. The disk storage was only used for spool (jobs in and print out). No user files. Punched card jobs were read on the 7040 and written to the spool disk. The 7090 selected jobs from the spool disk and ran them using only mag tape and the spool disk for input and output. Any printed output was written to a print spool on the spool disk. The 7040 would select print jobs from the print spool and print them.
Really up town, but 2 model 65's could not run the workload that the 7090-7040 ran.
I was a scientific programmer. This was a job that meant you coded programs for the engineers to calculate anything they needed to design and build an airplane. During my years at GD, I worked on the B-58 and the F111. One large program was an english language compiler for an automated electronics test machine to check out the avionics of the F111.
I also worked on wing box simulations that calculated the pressure and viberation modes on a wing under varying conditions using data collected either from a real airplane in flight or from wind tunnel models.
I was also a member of the APT group (Automatic Programmed Tools) that wrote programs to drive big milling machines which cut parts out of solid metal.
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